Various attempts have been made to optimize the cooling of various automobile parts. Some of the various devices developed have been designed to control the air flow throughout the engine compartment of the automobile such that the desired amount of heat is transferred away from the engine, transmission, and other components which generate heat, in order to maintain an optimal operating temperature.
However, it is also desirable to bring the engine up to the normal operating temperature as soon as possible after engine start-up. When the engine is substantially the same temperature as the surrounding environment and is turned on, the engine is the least fuel efficient (especially during start-up and the temperature of the surrounding environment is cold). The reduced fuel efficiency is why it is considered desirable to bring the engine up to the optimal operating temperature very quickly. Under these conditions, it is not desirable to remove heat away from the engine and the various components surrounding the engine, and therefore devices designed to control air flow around the engine are more beneficially used if they do not remove heat away from the engine at start-up.
Active grille systems that have been developed implement a frame is typically molded as a complete part. During assembly, the frame and/or the vanes have to be distorted in order to assemble the complete system onto the one piece frame. Additionally, the one piece frame has a low shipping density as it is mostly empty space. Furthermore, if an active grille system has two variants with either additional vanes or a base air flow, a complete new frame must be molded and shipped. It is therefore desirable to provide a frame that is multiple separate molded parts instead of one complete molding. This will aid in the assembly of the active grille shutter system without having to distort the frames or the vanes. Additionally, having multiple components accommodates the various variants that can be needed depending on the particular application. Lastly, having a multi-piece frame increases the shipping density since the various components can be stacked more closely together.